I have a friend. A great friend. A very particular friend. One might even say a persnickety friend.
This friend loves my photography. Sweet, right?

This friend likes to hang my photos on his wall. And I'm honored.

This friend likes to come to me with projects. It will start off simple enough. Something like... "Ok. Here is what I want a photo of next." I listen. And as I listen my head usually starts to hurt. There is this thing that he loves, or this view he remembers from childhood, or this place that is important to him and his family. And so I get an "assignment." He tells me what he wants, and I go out and try to capture it.

It is incredibly difficult trying to capture someone else's vision. I go. I see what I can see. Find what I can find. But with these assignments, I'm not looking for what interests me. I am looking to capture the elusive whatever that makes this site special to him.

It isn't easy. Last time we did this it was a view of the Upper Swan Mountains at sunset. A view he grew up with. This assignment took me all over the Valley and lead to some photos I was really happy with. It also lead to a new photo on his wall. Finally. Now it's a view of Big Mountain with the nighttime ski lights on.

I do not doubt there are more attempts at this to come. The odds that I have successfully captured something he'll approve for a place on his wall in one attempt are virtually nil. No way I'm getting that lucky.

But while I whine about how hard these assignments are, the truth is I love them. He has good tastes for what will make a beautiful photo and anything that drags me out into the world and makes stretch those creative muscles has to be a good thing. Plus, there are usually other views, other images, other photos to capture while I am work on his project. That was definitely true on Sunday night.

So here are the first round of photos of Big Mountain and some of the other shots I found. I'll update this post later once I have the stamp of approval or once I have a round two of images to share.

Those are my favorites of Big Mountain. Here are some of the other views from that night.